Saturday, December 21, 2013

Just a lot of stuff I want to say….

I know this Duck Dynasty thing has turned into an avalanche. It started rolling as soon as people had differing opinions, and I don’t see it ending anytime soon. It gives people something to fight about, and people love to fuss and argue. It lets us all climb up on our high horses and proclaim that WE are the right ones. If we don’t watch out we will be knocked off that horse by the avalanche.

I am a Christian. I LOVE me some Jesus… in fact, I love Jesus more than anything or anyone. He is my EVERYTHING. He is the reason I get up and breathe everyday. I love Him. I have struggled in the past with gay marriage and how to minister to homosexuals without throwing that word “sin” in it. I struggle, because I love people so stinking much it hurts. I don’t want to hurt them… I want them to see the hope and love that can only come from Jesus. I want them to live in complete freedom. I have tried to skirt around the subject so that everyone is happy. Unfortunately we know life doesn’t work that way.

I love people. I believe we are all sinners as the Bible says. I love straight sinners, I love gay sinners, I love vain sinners, I love gluttonous sinners, I love sinners who spend too much money on clothes. I love thieving sinners, I love murdering sinners, I love sinners who aren’t honoring their parents, I love Christians who are sinners because they judge others. In short I love all people, and that love is not based on your sexuality, your addictions, your professional accomplishments, your issues, or your hang ups. I respect the fact that everyone has an opinion, and I try to be respectful of everyone’s opinions, whether I like them or not. I will admit that is a difficult task sometimes, but I try my best. Sometimes I fail.

I believe that the Bible is God’s own word breathed into existence. I believe that He ordained every Word in it. I don’t understand a lot of it, but I don’t have to. I accept all the other things on faith. Although I don’t understand His reasons who am I to question GOD? Who am I to say that something He said is a sin is not a sin? Who is anyone to say that something God said is sin is not a sin? Who decides that part of THE HOLY BIBLE isn’t applicable anymore? I actually heard a man on CNN state that parts of the Bible don’t fly in the city square anymore. I almost caught my breath, because he certainly forgot to Whom it Is he goes Before. Shiver. He had decided that part of what God said didn’t apply to him, because he didn’t want it to. That’s the catch. If you take part of It you have to take all of It. That’s where lines get blurry and crossed. To believe every Word of The Bible doesn’t make me a bigot, a racist, or a hater. It makes me a child who trusts her Father.

Having said all that I have such a huge love and compassion for the gay community. I have a fierce love and need to protect the gay people I love and their families. I don’t participate in anything that isolates ANY group of people in the name of Jesus. He NEVER isolated anyone. If He wanted to talk about the choices they were making in their lives He sat down with them and talked. They had a conversation. He helped them work things out. He told the Truth, and He told it like it is. They’re all His Words, and I trust the way He used them. For reasons I don’t completely understand The Church as a whole has decided that homosexuality is THE SIN. It’s THE SIN we need to address constantly. It’s THE SIN that we need to fight against. It’s THE SIN that deserves all of our attention constantly. Do you ever wonder why that is like I do? I believe that part of it is the fact that it’s easy to call people out for sins we don’t struggle with. It’s much easier to stand firm on a subject we’ve never struggled with isn’t it? Why isn’t the church focusing on heterosexual marriages and the decline of the Christian family as God intended? (That’s another story all together.) BUT WE LOVE GAY PEOPLE. WE HATE THE SIN AND NOT THE SINNER. I hear that everyday at least once. One day I was praying and discussing this issue, and God gave me a thought. My sexuality is PART of who I am, but it doesn’t define me. My sexuality has NOTHING to do with my spirituality. My spirit is not sexual. My spirit is as pure and white as a virgin thanks to the blood of Jesus. I think about Jesus A LOT more than I think about having sex with my husband(sorry Andrew),because I think of Him all day long. If someone asked what my identity is I would reply “I am a follower of Jesus”. I wouldn’t say, “I’m a heterosexual woman who struggled with sexual sin a great part of my life who happens to be married to a man”. All that describes part of me but not the core of ME. When did we stop looking at people as a whole? When did we start breaking people up and putting them into all these sinning categories? Does that help us glorify The Kingdom? I know that I personally can fit into several sinning categories, and I refuse membership to all of them, because Jesus took care of that on the Cross.

The entire point of that novel I just finished was to give the foundation for what I’m about to say. I believe that Mr. Duck Dynasty Phil had the absolute right AND responsibility to Biblically answer the question he was asked. I do not condone the words that came out of Phil’s mouth, and I have specific reasons why. When we use The Bible as a shield we are standing up and representing The Church. We are representing Jesus. We are the model. I don’t believe for one second that Jesus would’ve used the vulgar descriptions Phil used. When Phil agreed to answer that question he chose to answer to a huge audience representing Jesus Christ, and honestly, I don’t think for one second that Jesus would have handled it that way. I think He would’ve quoted the Scripture that dealt with the question, but He would not have been mean about it. Jesus would have told the Truth without all the graphic ugly details. It’s not only WHAT we say. It’s HOW we say it. The more I thought about it I tried to put myself in the place of a gay woman reading that. I hope that if I was a gay woman I would respect Phil’s opinion, but I would absolutely have the right to not like what he said. I don’t have a dog in the A&E fight. At first I was all roaring about his right to say whatever he wants. and then I posed a question to Andrew last night. What if my little family had a Christian television network that’s purpose was to spread the gospel and represent Jesus? What if Phil would have used those words on our network? Would I have wanted to greet Phil with a slap on the back the next morning? Probably not. I doubt I would’ve fired him, but we would’ve had a discussion about how to respectfully say things. My network. My right.

Before I push publish there is one last thing I want to put out there. Liberals call for conservative Christians to tolerate EVERYTHING. They want us to tolerate and not say a word about anything that society does no matter how badly it offends or hurts us. We are to take it. We are supposed to tiptoe around abortion and hot button issues, because Heaven forbid, we may OFFEND somebody. We are supposed to stand quietly when our government tries to erase all traces of the God Whom this country was founded on, because some of what He said offends some. We are supposed to shut up. Sorry. It doesn’t work that way. If you ask for tolerance you are to GIVE tolerance. If someone says something you don’t like you aren’t allowed to go into a huge hissy fit, because they don’t agree with you…. You calling him a bigot and hater is no better than what he said. Sorry. That’s just the way it works. It’s not always easy to give tolerance and kindness to those who offend us, but being hateful and ugly gets us nowhere, and it gets you nowhere. Do we want to be right, or do we want to make a positive difference? I personally want to live my life in a way that pleases my Savior. Sometimes that may offend some of my friends and family. To that I say I’m sorry, but I am accountable to Jesus and no one else.